The Soldier who Said No (8 page)

They sat in the car looking across the street at the house. It was a small biscuit-coloured house with green aluminium windows and Roman blinds. The garden was small but tidy. It was fenced with timber slats, for privacy rather than protection.

‘There’s something going on here,’ Henderson belatedly answered Kupenga’s question, ‘and I think we’re going to have to come back to find out what it is.’

Neither of them looked forward to it.

In the Urewera forests the training continued. The police raids in October had resulted in the arrest and detention of the wrong people, political activists who had never been anywhere near the forest and pig hunters with no political ambitions. The public outcry had been such that the
FBI
-trained police Anti-Terror Unit had ceased all operations in the Ureweras. Their elaborate raid had captured only one rifle, which had been in the same family for decades, a pig gun, as its owner described it. The police declared that they were looking for a sawn-off shotgun and an
AK
47. Those who knew terrorists and their weapons sniggered behind their Brandies and Coke. The
AK
, maybe, but not the gangster’s sawn-off shotgun used to intimidate competitors in the hunt for scarce methamphetamine or to rob the local dairy.

Of the nineteen people arrested in the Urewera raids, only three were Tuhoe. The tribe’s anger intensified. Free of the police presence on their lands, the training moved to the more inaccessible valleys, where no white man had yet set foot, and increased in both frequency and intensity. The recruits got stronger and fitter. The training moved from basic drills to advanced techniques. Dummy wooden rifles were exchanged for real ones and blank ammunition for live rounds. Their training had started long before the October raids, and by the end of the year the recruits had the look of soldiers. A passing-out parade was organised and prizes awarded for the best performances in a variety of skills: tracking, marksmanship and logistics. Every prize winner was immediately allocated a role as an instructor for the new intake. The other graduates from the course went deeper into the forest for specialist training in urban guerrilla operations, intelligence gathering and evaluation as well as the manufacture of explosives from commonly available goods like household bleach, diesel and fertiliser.

It was planned that each class of twenty-four would be involved in the training of the next class.

Henderson and Kupenga followed Emma de Villiers from her house to the hospital. They kept their distance to avoid detection, but in the last-minute Christmas rush, there was little danger of her becoming aware of their unmarked car, unless, of course, she was expecting to be followed. They watched her enter the hospital before parking their car. Emma led her daughter, a little girl about six or seven years old, by the hand.

The hospital, a nondescript two-storied building, was at the upper end of Brightside Road, at the foot of Mount Eden, in the wealthy suburb of Epsom. The two detectives sneaked into the hospital, trying to be inconspicuous. Henderson leaned across the desk and flashed his warrant card at the nurse at the reception desk. ‘I need to speak to you in private. Where can we go?’

The nurse was used to authority and pointed to a door behind the counter. ‘Let’s go into the office.’

‘The woman and the little girl who came in just ahead of us, who are they visiting?’

‘The patient in Room 6. His name is De Villiers.’

Henderson and Kupenga exchanged a glance.

‘Where can we wait?’ Henderson asked. ‘We need to see him.’

‘But we don’t want his partner to see us,’ Kupenga added.

‘There’s a bench outside the women’s general ward around that corner over there.’ The nurse pointed. ‘I’ll call you when they’ve left,’ she said.

Henderson and Kupenga made themselves comfortable outside the women’s ward. It had eight beds and there were visitors around every one of them. An hour later the visitors had left, but the nurse hadn’t called them. They slowly approached the door of Room 6. They heard voices inside. They stood on either side of the door, not knowing what to do.

‘What’s this button for?’ they heard a small child asking.

There was a pause before they recognised De Villiers’s voice. ‘To raise the backrest of the bed.’ His voice sounded tired, like he was in pain.

‘Oh,’ said the little voice. ‘Let me see.’

‘No, Zoë, Dad can show you next time we come to visit.’ They recognised Emma de Villiers’s voice. They would have preferred to speak to De Villiers in her absence, but the Prime Minister wanted results and the media were beginning to ask questions. They had to speak to De Villiers within the hour.

‘No, it’s okay,’ they heard him say. His voice was followed by the whirring of an electrical motor.

‘Do it again.’

‘No.’

‘Why not?’

‘You didn’t say please.’

There was a small pause.

‘And what is this thing for?’ It was the child again.

‘It’s medicine,’ Emma de Villiers said.

‘It’s a blood transfusion,’ Pierre de Villiers said, a subtle rebuke in his voice. ‘They are giving me some blood to help me get better quickly so that I can be home for your birthday party.’

Henderson gestured to Kupenga to follow him. They went for a walk around the hospital. There was a garden under tall trees on the eastern side and parking behind. They took their time, but when they returned to Room 6, they were just in time to hear the girl ask, ‘Tell me another story, please.’

Henderson rolled his eyes. Enough was enough. He was about to barge in when Emma de Villiers said, ‘No Zoë, that’s enough. We have to go now. Daddy needs to rest.’

The girl started to complain, but her mother held firm.

Henderson and Kupenga took positions on either side of the hospital bed. De Villiers appeared to be asleep. He was very pale.

‘Are you awake, De Villiers?’ Henderson started tentatively.

Pierre de Villiers opened his eyes slowly and sighed.

‘I need to talk to you about a new case.’

De Villiers mustered the strength to speak. ‘I’ve been suspended.’

‘That has nothing to do with the case we are investigating. I can have your suspension reversed any time I want,’ Henderson said.

‘No, you can’t,’ said De Villiers. ‘Wellington sent me a letter saying I’ll remain suspended until a disciplinary enquiry has been finalised.’

Henderson cleared his throat. ‘Your suspension and the new case have nothing to do with each other. And you remain a member of the unit until the enquiry has been finalised.’

They looked at De Villiers. He had closed his eyes and gave no sign that he was listening.

Kupenga looked at the prone figure. ‘You will have to talk to us, you know. Eventually you will have to cooperate.’

‘Up yours,’ De Villiers said without opening his eyes. ‘I don’t have to listen to you.’

Henderson was surprised at the vehemence.

‘And if you ever push my wife around again, I’ll kill you.’

Kupenga took a step closer to the bed. ‘What did you say?’

De Villiers ignored him.

‘I’m going to lay a charge against you,’ Kupenga said, ‘for threatening to kill.’

Henderson pulled Kupenga aside and whispered in his ear. ‘Stop making a fool of yourself. He’s lying here connected to machines and high on drugs. You shouldn’t have pushed the door.’

De Villiers surreptitiously pressed the alarm button under the sheet. Seconds later a nurse and the ward sister walked in.

‘What’s going on here?’ she demanded. ‘Visiting hours ended an hour ago. What are you still doing here?’ Her name badge said
Staff Sister Florette Appollus
and Henderson took her to be Fijian Indian or Filipina, but she was Malay, from the other side of the world.

‘Hierdie ouens pla my,’ De Villiers said.
These fellows are bugging me.

Henderson presented his warrant card but Sister Appollus ignored it. ‘Toemaar,’ she said to De Villiers. ‘Ek sal hulle regsien.’
Not to worry. I’ll see to them.

‘We’re here on a police investigation,’ Henderson said. ‘And it’s a very serious case, so don’t even think of intervening.’

Sister Appollus was unmoved. ‘You’re a detective, I see, and you can’t work out for yourself that this man is too sick to be bothered?’ She had read his warrant card after all. ‘You see this stuff here?’ she didn’t wait for their response. ‘It’s blood. We’re giving him a blood transfusion, and you want to interrogate him?’

De Villiers suppressed a smile.

‘Get out,’ she ordered.

‘When can we see him?’ Henderson asked.

‘Leave your details at Reception and I’ll ask his doctor when next I see him.’

Henderson remembered that it was Christmas Eve and turned at the door. ‘And when will that be?’

‘The day after tomorrow, or perhaps the day after that,’ she said with her back to them.

Kupenga followed Henderson to their car while Sister Appollus fussed around De Villiers’s bed. ‘The blood is nearly finished. We’ll take that line out in half an hour or so. You look a lot better today, not so pale any more. We’ll have you up and walking around in a day or so. Merry Christmas!’

Before Sister Appollus left him in the care of the nurse, she wiped his forehead and whispered, ‘Druk nettie knoppie assie dieners jou wee’ pla
.
’
Just press the button if the cops bother you again.

In the hour before first light, the clouds had passed. After a glance at the stars, Pierre de Villiers set off in a southerly direction. He formulated a plan as he jogged, putting more ground between him and his pursuers. He knew they would come for him. He would need rocky terrain or a stream with running water to perfect his scheme, but in an area something between savannah and bushveld, he might have to travel some distance before he would find any koppies. He knew he could not return to the river, not immediately anyway. Soon his breathing took on a rhythm matching his stride, two strides in, three strides out, two strides in, three strides out.

While he had expected some disciplinary action when he returned to base, De Villiers was unable to make sense of the events on the bank of the Cuito River.

They had reached the river bank within minutes. Their kayak was where they had left it, tied to the roots of a tree under its overhanging branches. Verster called Pretoria on the radio. This time there was no acknowledgement of the signal. He tried again. No response.

They heard the helicopter first and readied themselves for evacuation, but it flew straight up the river towards Vila Nova Armada. Its underbelly had given the game away. It was a Russian gunship, an
MI
25, known as a Hind according to its
NATO
codename, with rockets and heavy machine guns hanging below its fuselage, used for ground support. The Hind had been followed minutes later by two light
SADF
choppers. The Alouettes were French-built attack gunships and were not designed for evacuating troops.

Verster and De Villiers kept their heads down and waited in an uneasy silence. By early evening they had been ready to return to their kayak to start making their way down-river when De Villiers heard the distinctive whirr of a Puma helicopter. It was the agreed evacuation chopper, he assumed, and when it landed near the designated rendezvous, he felt sure enough to initiate radio contact.

The Puma landed on the river bank. They waited for a call on the radio, but there was none. The Puma remained ready for a fast takeoff, the blades whirring at speed but at flat pitch. A radio cackled in the background and Afrikaans voices filtered down to Verster and De Villiers.

‘Let’s show ourselves,’ Verster suggested.

‘Better call them on the radio first.’

Verster fiddled with the controls of his radio and found Channel 17. He spoke clearly but in hardly more than a whisper. ‘Lieutenant Verster and Captain de Villiers at the
RV
ready for evac, come in please.’

There was a long silence before the radio operator answered. ‘Why are you whispering?’

‘We’re below your position. Hold your fire so we can come out.’

A different voice took over. ‘We’re holding fire.’ The voice was different, authoritative, rasping, the voice of a heavy smoker.

De Villiers and Verster could hear that the speaker was a few metres away, above their heads. They slowly stepped out from behind their cover and made their way up the bank,
AK
s held above their heads. Halfway up they were accosted by a soldier with an
R
4. ‘I’ve got them, Captain,’ the troop shouted to someone behind him.

‘Bring them up. Tell them to put their hands up.’

The captain was waiting for them at the top of the bank. He stopped them with a hand signal. They could see his outline against the sky, but none of his features. He stood with his legs apart and his arms folded across his chest.

‘They’re
UNITA
, keep your rifle on them!’ he shouted.

They quickly surrendered their
AK
47s.

‘Who are you and what are you doing here?’ the captain demanded.

De Villiers spoke for the two of them. ‘We are 4 Recce and we are here for evacuation to Rundu.’

‘Name and rank,’ the raspy voice demanded.

‘De Villiers, Captain, 4 Recce, and Verster, Lieutenant, also 4 Recce,’ De Villiers answered.

‘Can you speak?’ The officer above them pointed at Verster.

‘Yes, Sir,’ said Verster, and anticipating the next instruction, added, ‘Verster, Lieutenant, 4 Recce.’

‘Don’t bullshit me, gentlemen. 4 Recce only does water-borne operations, and you’re a long way from the sea.’

I hold the same rank as you, De Villiers silently admonished the captain, and he had difficulty hiding his irritation. An officer would have introduced himself under ordinary circumstances, asked if they needed food or water. Hell, De Villiers thought, a professional soldier would have asked if our mission had been successful or if they could offer any assistance to complete it. ‘The water is a few metres behind us,’ he said, indicating with his thumb across his shoulder.